Drake and Nicki Minaj tease video game-related songs

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Video games and rap have had a long relationship, mostly through samples and the occasional original track for a video game soundtrack. Now two of the biggest pop/hip-hop artists might be making that connection a bit more intimate. Drake and Nicki Minaj both teased video-game-related songs, though the circumstances for each are quite different.

Drake, after making a surprise appearance on a popular Fortnite stream with Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and breaking Twitch’s viewership records, was back at the game this week. While the rapper played more of the battle royale shooter (which you can watch in the video here), the subject of his music came up.

Blevins tells Drake to put some “Fortnite lingo” in his upcoming album. “It has to happen, it just has to be the right way,” Drake agrees. “I say when Epic gives me the emote. When Epic gives me the ‘Hotline Bling’ emote, I’ll do it, but ‘til then I’m on strike.” Blevins responds that he’s raised the issue with the developer before, specifically with the dance from Drake’s music video. Unfortunately, as Drake continues, Epic is missing basically every current dance move for their emote system. Nobody can taunt with something relevant, just something like The Worm.

Perhaps going the other direction in terms of video game relevancy, Nicki Minaj has announced a single named for Street Fightercharacter Chun-Li on Twitter.

On Thursday, the fighting game character will get her due in a Minaj track -- that is if those ox horns don’t lie. She references the game in the second line of “I Am Your Leader,” but the franchise has a relationship with the rap scene since before the film adaptation had an all hip-hop soundtrack. More recently, Lupe Fiasco has name-dropped the series in his lyrics and played the game against the world’s top professionals.

So it’s been a banner week for rap and video games. My only question is where is Chance the Rapper’s Kirby song?